The present invention relates to mattresses and more particularly to mattress assembly for invalids and incontinent persons.
Hospital patients, nursing home residents, and others who suffer from incontinency require that their bed linens require changing, sometimes several times a day. Furthermore, in many cases the required bed pans cannot be provided promptly. In the case of incontinent persons, the soiling of the bed linens is generally caused by uncontrolled or involuntary discharge of urine. Hospital patients and nursing home residents are generally administered at least one and in some cases several bed baths a day. This procedure is employed where it is difficult or inadvisable to remove the patient from the bed for conventional bathing purposes.
In all such cases, the bed linens are wetted either as a result of discharge of urine or by the washing of the patient while lying in the bed. Particularly when the patient is infirm, his removal from the bed in order to change the bed linens requires the efforts of at least two and possibly more persons such as nurses or attendants.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide a mattress assembly which permits washing of a patient in his bed without wetting the bed linens.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a mattress assembly which provides drainage of fluid from a patient's body with a minimum of soilage of the bed linens.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a mattress assembly of the character described in which the drained fluid may be collected and removed without disturbing the patient in his bed.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a mattress assembly of the character described in which the means for collecting the drained fluid is inexpensive in manufacture and hence is disposable.